


Through Luna's Grace

by BurrSquee, Tikor



Series: Castebook:  Full Moon [2]
Category: Exalted
Genre: Gen, Lunars, POV First Person, Roleplaying Character, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-17 04:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13069548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurrSquee/pseuds/BurrSquee, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tikor/pseuds/Tikor
Summary: Herein are the stories of six Full Moons as they are graced by Luna.





	1. Introduction

The Full Moons among Luna’s Chosen are often blessed amid blood and gore, sometimes others’, sometimes their own. There’s always some physical confrontation, be it a duel, a raid, or a warzone. From these violent beginnings, most Full Moons lead violent lives, mastering their bodies to the purpose of dominance by physical means. In the First Age, they became storied gladiators, ruthless commandos, or leaders of the Wyld Hunts of old. In the Second, they are the most feared single combatants known, able to take what they please by force… so long as those holdings are far enough away from Realm tributaries.


	2. Strength of Many

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strength of Many, a tribal youth in the Southern grasslands, meets his match.

**The Old Ways and the New Ways**  
It used to be that the peoples of the savannah knew how to live off the land. They could tell the good grasses from the bad, they could hunt the bushmeat, they could follow the spirit tears to watering holes not yet dry even in the summer months. They had their freedom, and they conquered Creation’s hardship, generation after generation.

But then a traveler from a far sea came, and dug a well. Around this well he built buildings of baked earth. To these buildings his friends would come and give him wonders to sell, waxed hides that did not crack in the sun, coverings for feet to keep them from pain in the savannah, and water that was hard, cold, and never melted. To the people he traded these things for what they had in abundance - their bush hides, their dried and salted meat, their spare weapons. In secret, always at night, he would trade much for an undesirable the tribes wanted gone. He did not say what he did with them, or where they went.

Once the traveler held a great feast where he slaughtered a steer, cooked and served the meat to the people who had come to trade, eating deeply himself. He said that the steers and cows and calves were easy to raise - they ate the grasses of the savannah that bore no fruit or seeds and could drink the muddy water too foul for the tribes. And better yet, they could be driven and controlled so that they could be slaughtered in the lean times when game was scarce or the fruit and seeds of the savannah were out of season.

Inevitably, some traded for these steers and cows, drove them off, and had a feast of their own when they returned to their tribe’s wandering place. Also inevitably, some bought two and bred them.

At first, the cattle were a boon to the tribes. They bridged the hard times when game was scarce or the fruit and seeds of the savannah were out of season, just as the traveler said. They bred easily, eating and drinking what the tribes could not, so they multiplied readily. But soon there were so many that they would drink the muddy pools dry and have need of the clear ones. In time they drank those dry, too. They would chew the grass short, and bellow for more, growing thin if they did not graze. So each tribe widened their wandering places. Eventually, they met each other.

Arguments raged and fights broke out. Never before had the tribes had a concept of their place in the savannah. They simply wandered in its great grasses, hunting what they could, hiding from the fire, eating the fruit of the land, and drinking a sliver of what water they found. Then, the savannah was a large place, the entire world, and no one would know it all in a lifetime. Now, the savannah felt small, as the cattle’s needs showed how easily the grasses could be spent. Many died in squabbles over grazing rights, many cattle were stolen and slaughtered, and many prisoners were traded to the traveler at his well and stone buildings for the means to keep fighting. The tribes bought back their own dried meat at twice the price, they traded new cows for thrice what they paid for their parents, they even paid for water when another tribe had claimed the watering holes. Worse, the more captives they sold the less they earned for each night-bargain where an enemy went away forever.

I was born in this time of conflict. Since I was as tall as a short spear I have been trained to use it to defend my tribe, our cattle, and our grasses. It was there, in the tribe’s grazing lands, where I was taken and sold. Where I was taken again and uplifted.

 **Capture**  
Every tribe believes they can defend their lands until it is proven to them that they cannot. I was one such ignorant, herding my family’s cattle with the swagger of youth. I soaked up the praise my fat cattle drew in the wandering places of the Vocoxai, making me think the risk was worth it. I dared to take my cattle out to the maximum of their range and back again in a day, far from help if I were attacked.

And that is what happened. While out away from the tribe’s wandering place, far out of the range of my voice to the true warriors of the tribe, several members of a neighboring tribe, the Suxsa, I could tell by their markings, snuck through the grass and ambushed me. I never even had the chance to use my spear. I was stabbed in the leg, only once and not too deeply, away from the vast flows of blood. Looking back, it was expertly done. Then, I was beaten severely, such that I could not stand, unable to fight back the whole time for any weight I put on my leg was agony and I had lost my spear in the initial grapple.

My whole herd was driven away. But I did not follow them. Instead, I was taken to the traveler where he lived near his well, under the shade of his baked earth buildings. There, I was washed, allowed to relieve myself, chained to the wall and told to sleep. I could not sleep. I can still remember the baked earth walls, how they smelled. Dust and fire and a sheen of fear. So different from the savannah. Close, dirty, used.

The next day the traveler came to me. He fed me some water, bread, and beef, and watched me avoid my broken tooth as I chewed, waiting for me to finish. I looked to him a few times, but my attention was on the meal, and we both knew it. Once I had drank the last drop of water, he addressed me in my own tongue, Firespeak, but with an accent I had never heard before. He said to me, “I know this is hard to accept. You probably don’t think it is fair. One moment you’re driving your herd, the next you’re beaten around and end up here. You probably want to go back to your family, even if they might beat you again for losing all those cattle. Well, I’m here to tell you that life is about to get a lot different for you. For one, you’ll never see your family again, so give up on that little dream.”

I thought about my mother and father, about my sister and brother. I saw in my mind’s eye my cousins, aunts, uncles and distant relatives that made up my tribe, of which all my memories were shared. I did not want to believe this man. But he was still talking.

“...sold. So, tomorrow you’ll be travelling far from here. My best advice is to think about what you can get away with, and do that and maybe a little less. Masters don’t like it when you break their rules. You best learn ‘em quick. And do whatever work y’re told. Now, would you let me take a look at that tooth?”

I nodded to the man. My tooth was an agony, and I was not about to turn away his kindness. After he put his fingers in my mouth he frowned and shook his head, then went away and came back again with a little hammer. I eyed it warily. “I know, son. Always sad to lose a tooth. But trust me, it’ll be better this way.”

He knocked on my tooth with his hammer, and my mouth exploded with pain. But it was over shortly. I felt like this was not the man’s first time using the hammer in this way. The bandages he put on my other wounds I barely felt; that pain was crowded out by the void in my mouth where once was a tooth but now was only agony.

 **Exaltation**  
True to his word, a group of men on horses came from the south the next day. The traveler fed me again, then brought me before them. They haggled over me, spoke about me as if I was not there. I was poked an prodded and spun around. It was humiliating. I objected, and was hit hard across the face, down to my knees where my chained hands clattered clumsily in the dirt. The traveller spoke to me as I crouched there, “Remember what I said, boy. Learn the rules. Don’t speak unless spoken to, or that’ll happen again.”

They finally agreed to some middle number. My outburst was referenced every other sentence in the final bargaining. Coins, a cow, some milk, rights to refill their waterskins at the well, and finally me all changed hands. I was led to a wagon.

Within the wagon were several southerners like myself. All chained like myself. Several showed signs of being recently beaten. They had their heads down. When I paused at the entrance I was shoved in, to fall at their feet. None of them helped me up.

Inside, it was suffocating with hopelessness. It oppressed the small wagon, sapping my already flagging strength. I pushed myself to my knees, then found my seat, and began to ponder what to do. Should I resist and get myself killed? What would that prove? Should I go along and do as I am told? But, when would that end? With my death again, most likely, just a few years down the road.

In this moment of introspection, a girl no taller than my waist, shockingly dirty, yet below that grime was striking silver hair, got up from the bench across from me and laid her manacled hands on my knees. She said to me, “Mister. You look very strong. Can you please break these chains?” She held her hands up to me, with her best attempt at a smile showing missing teeth, some from growth, some from trauma.

I sat there for a moment, staring at that girl’s face and felt the rage build within me. No one deserved this, this bondage. Not that little, beaten, dirty girl. Not me who had only ever been a loyal member of my tribe. Not my worst enemy. A clean death was better. Banishment better yet. To allow a man to be chained, to be forced to work is to give every man cause to bind and sell his brother. Yes, I would break those chains, I thought to myself. And by what I now know was Luna’s grace, once I resolved to do this thing, I felt my stab-wound close, I felt my bruises heal, even my missing tooth regrew within my mouth.

To the girl, to my fellow slaves, I said nothing. I merely grabbed the girl’s wrists as tenderly as I was able in that moment, and twisted the iron rings that had left raw marks on the child’s wrists. I twisted, and they broke. The child’s smile grew wider, more genuine. Suddenly, the inside of the wagon was awash in moonlight. I did not stay still; I broke my own chains, then left the wagon to slay my brief owners.

It was over soon. In the grip of the second breath, the traveler and his visitors stood no chance against me even at ten to one.


	3. Thorn Sun and Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thorn Sun and Moon, a raider and magnet for trouble.

**Raiding**  
Takin’ other people’s stuff is the best. Just the best. Me and my war clan, we’d always be talkin’ ‘bout the next raid, going raidin’, or enjoying the haul. Drinkin’ o’selves stupid, singin’ our war songs, eatin’ so much we could hardly move. Good times, those were, good times.

I first fell in with them as some discarded kid from gods knows where. No boat clan to call my own. ‘S prolly why I fell in so close with the war band. The band moved around a bunch back in those days. Seemed like every fat trade road and any set of sticks over water you might call a bridge was taken. But by the time I was grown, so did the Bloody Brothers grow into their own, ‘at’s what we called ourselves. We took a bridge for o’selves between two bloody big kingdoms, between Roka-Jin and where we was from, Linowan.

We had a good time lootin’ there; merchants would come by on the regular. Guildmen, mostly. Old Sawtooth, he wouldn’t let us hit every one. Said it had to still be ‘profitable’. Merchants were always rolling the dice, but they wouldn’t bet on a sure loser, he’d said. So we’d only take from the merchants once in a while.

The Roka-Jin, though, they weren’t going anywhere. We’d darting across their lands, through their fields, _days_ in. Hit someplace we’d never hit before. Take a wagon and whatever was on it. A few horses, a goat or two. Then we’d haul back to Linowan lands, even if going straight-ways wasn’t the fastest way back to the bridge. Those Roka-Jin didn’t follow us too far into Linowan lands. Politics I didn’t understand at the time. But seeing the river, that old tributary to the Silver River folks called Treemist, made me feel like we were safe. I still like rivers. Got a lot going for ‘em. Good memories of letting loose.

Now, we always took people’s stuff, but we didn’t always take their lives. Only when they’d fought back too hard, or had that look in their eye. ‘Ye know, the one that says they’ll be coming looking for you. No sense in killing everyone, Old Sawtooth used to say. No good loot in a shadowland. We made exceptions for Haltans, of course.

 **Conscription**  
While I was still young and dumb, well, younger and dumber, before Luna’s touch, that is... ach. You know what I’m trying t’ say. Back in the day. Yeah, then. The Realm brought the biggest army I’d ever seen into our turf. They were hunting Anathema, they said. And they said a whole lot of other things. Made a lot of rules. Many, many more than the matriarchs. More than I could remember. They had so many rules, they wrote them down.

Well, one of these rules was that we weren’t to raid any merchants or any ‘o them ‘supply lines’. Another was that we weren’t allowed t’ raid our ‘allies’ the Roka-Jin. Well, us Bloody Brothers didn’t feel like eating unsalted fish for howeverlong these Realm folks were sticking around, so we asked them what could we do without being hanged up on a tree for everybody t’ see like the folks who broke their rules. ‘Ey said we could fight. ‘Ey’d feed us and even pay us. That sounded just fine t’ us.

 **Exaltation**  
Old Sawtooth was made something called an ‘Auxiliary Fanglord’ and got to keep four of us Bloody Brothers with him, me included. The other brothers got split up, and we didn’t see much of them. We joked and ate and told stories with the other auxiliaries from damn near everywhere. I remember this dark-skinned giant who said he came from a ‘desert’ where you could spin all around and see no trees or water. Some clearly sickly folks that said they was from up north, they had this skin that turned red in the sun, looked painful. ‘Ey said that they’d spend half the year in a single house wit’ ‘eir whole family some winters when the snows were too bad to dig out. I can’t say I believed ever’thing I heard, but it passed the time. We did a lot of waiting.

Then the order came t’ move out, so we packed our junk up like e’erbody else and marched North with the army. Old Sawtooth was having a fine old time, time of his life. He really felt like he was part of something, helping the Wyld hunt chase down a real-life Anathema. He’d go on and on about it while we was marching. It’s not like we had t’ pay attention to where we were going. Just follow the marching metal monsters, couldn’t miss ‘em in the plains.

We made it t’ some place called ‘Krellen Ford’ that looked in rough shape. Far worse shape than the Bloody Brothers ever left a place. It was burning t’ the ground, people were dying left and right, you could hear ‘em screaming. We were told t’ advance and kill any icewalkers we saw. So that’s what we did.

Old Sawtooth was getting orders from some scalelord who was getting orders from a winglord, and so on up the line. We were lightly armored, so we got the job of running down the wagons. We all perked up at that. Damn fine things folks keep in wagons. So we watched the heavy infantry lay into the icewalkers while we just ran right by the city and killed anybody who looked like they were gonna stop us getting a wagon. Things seemed t’ be going to plan. Then some idiot stabbed a yeddim.

Now, yeddim, on damn near every day you’ll meet one, are almost comatose. You can run headlong into one, and it probably won’t even look at you. It’s a toss-up if they’ll even snort. They’re so laid back, they probably would have just let us kill everybody around them and take the wagons. Probably. But when you go and drive a spear into one’s shoulder, that’s the kind of thing you just can’t ignore. Not even a yeddim. So this yeddim rears up, I didn’t even know they could do that, and stomps that idiot flat. Then she starts running with that wagon, right for us, our little fang of Bloody Brothers.

Old Sawtooth orders us to scatter, and we do right quick. But, see, Old Sawtooth was getting on in his years. He didn’t scatter near as quick as us young’uns. And I look back to see, all slow-like, though I know it must have happened fast, this yeddim barely miss Old Sawtooth, and then the wagon catch him right in the legs. He falls over, but instead of the wagon going over him he gets stuck between the wheels and the ground. The yeddim, though, strong as she is, doesn’t even notice. Drags him half a mile before he falls out, just crushed, dead to rights.

Old Sawtooth, he’s the closest I’d ever came to a father. Seeing that, being surrounded by fightin’, far from home, something in me just cracked. I stood there in all the hullabaloo, letting it wash over me, then some lost woman in torn clothes and her silver hair all 'a mess bumped into me, fell over, got up and kept running, bare feet caked in mud. It woke me up something fierce. I let out this whoop an’ I ran down that yeddim. I sunk my teeth into it’s neck and ripped a whole chunk out. It bucked me off, but I went after it again and again, ripping it apart with these claws on my hands and my teeth that felt much, much bigger than when I rolled outta my bedroll that morning.

Once the bloody mess that used to be a yeddim stopped buckin’, I looked up to see damn near ever’body looking back at me. The wagon-guards were dead, it was just us Realm auxiliaries now. They were all under this dancin’ moonlight, but it was the middle of the day. Then I remembered the stories of them moon-mad Anathema the Realm folks like to tell. I looked down at my paws, lit up in that moonlight real bright, and realized that light was coming from me. I was one of ‘em. I knew that this whole army was out here just to kill people like me. So ‘fore any of them could get any ideas, I ran off North, into the forest.


	4. Bulb of the Perfected Lotus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bulb of the Perfected Lotus, tribeswoman and warrior, leaves the tribe of her birth.

**Warrior of the Tchu-Tcha**  
Ah, the woman I was. Heh. I’d no longer consider her myself, if we were to meet under a canopy. But I will tell you of her anyway. The tale may lead you to your own enlightenment, listening to how I outgrew my mortal flaws.

I was born among the barbarian tribes of the East. Farther East than Halta, farther East than the Parrot Tribes League, farther East than the Ten Tribes, though about as far South as that last. My people called themselves the Tchu-Tcha, and they were proud of that name. We fought the other tribes, the Oaogolos, the Libmenem, and others over any slight and for the good trees whose fruit was not tainted by the Wyld. I was born a warrior among them, raised above the gatherers and the hunters by my mother and father’s service to the tribe, but still below the shamen and the chieftain's family. I was scuffling with my child-friends since before I could remember; all our warrior parents would encourage us.

I grew into my assigned role with no thought of how else I might live my life. I was easily led, then. One flaw of many before Luna showed me how to find my own path. Training for war in the trees meant constant climbing; my muscles grew strong from the effort. Free hands and light knives or slings were our weapons. Some of the men who could carry extra weight favored javelins for range, and there was always the optimistic one who thought they could hide long enough on walkable branches to use a bow, but with the leaves so close in my homeland they were the exception. Stay moving, take a throw when you have the sight of the enemy, know where your friends are, leave the corpses for the lizard-beasts. That was life, and I lived it like I would leave it the next day.

We took trees and we lost trees. We had fat years and lean ones. Members of the tribe were celebrated when they were born and mourned when they died. The Wyld ebbed and flowed. There was always enough rain, but never enough territory. We prayed to our tribe-god that she would favor us in our petty wars for the best trees, that she would spare us the mark of the Wyld, and that the Tchu-Tcha would live on forevermore.

But as the Marked Wolf will tell you, the cycle always changes.

One year my tribe was pushed from the Western trees to the Eastern ones. The war-chief vowed that we would take back our home trees, but the warriors had bled dearly to retreat with as much of our possessions as we had. I had long since lost my mother and father to the wars, but my brother was still by my side in the war parties. I had not taken a mate, for none had caught my eye besides the virtuous Jahuro, who had fallen in our retreat. When I think back on this time I regret never taking his hand while he was still with us. I would leap branches and brave the knives of the enemy, but telling him how I felt was somehow too dangerous. I was not the only one with regrets. We all knew a lean year was ahead if we stayed here and had to pick the good fruit from the bad. Trees this close to the Wyld would change a woman with their bad fruit if she was not careful.

The Fair Folk must have smelled our despair. They came for us in our makeshift homes, riding man-sized lizards that could grip the trees with suckers on their feet. They did not kill us in our sleep, they yelled rousing cries, encouraging us to fight. Their gossamer blades shattered our ironwood ones, and they were unnaturally fast at evading our slings and thrown knives.

I had marked one, and though the blow was not lethal he retreated from the battle. Another’s steed took a knife of mine to the eye and fell from the trees to a place I could not see. I yelled our warcry to the rest of the tribe, but saw they had not done nearly as well. Most were bleeding, falling, or even pleading with the mad ones who just cackled and drank in their fearful emotion before cutting them down or binding them up. I began to despair. My half-trained mortal might, as highly as I thought of it back then, was no match for a ravaging party of the Fair Folk.

Another of their number rushed me, using his lizard to swipe at my feet while his sword cut at my middle. I had to retreat. One branch, then another. A kick to the lizard’s snout bought me enough space to measure a jump. When I landed I aimed and threw a knife, but it went under my mark with my tired arms. A scramble along a vine took me to yet another tree, and by then I was out of sight of my tribe. All the while the Fair Folk pursued me, deadly and laughing.

With my last knife, I decided I could not risk another missed throw. I had to close with my enemy and stab him until I was free of his pursuit. I hid on the backside of a tree where no branch sprouted, knife in one hand, two feet and one hand clinging to the bark. When the Fair Folk came to my side below me I jumped on his back.

Despite slamming the oddly light Fae with the weight of my full body, his lizard held fast to the tree. Grappled as we were his sword was awkward and unable to slash me. Armored and struggling as he was my knife did not find its way home, sliding off the impossibly hard gossamer plates of his armor.

In this fight for my life, in a night I’ll never forget, away from my friends and engaged with an enemy greater than I could hope to defeat, the canopy parted in a wind and moonlight struck me in my face. Unlike a normal moonlight, this was bright enough to blind me. A bird landed upon my head, I remember the feel of its claws. At the time I thought it was some mad crow not patient enough to wait till one of us was dead. I remember thinking that without seeing the Fae I would surely be cut by his sword or bit by his lizard. But neither of those things happened.

Instead my hand and feet clasped the branch his lizard stuck to. In my panic I pulled onto that safety, wary of falling. I dropped my knife; my other hand found the Fae’s sword-pommel and held fast to keep the blade from my flesh. I felt another of my hands find the Fae, another the lizard, and then four more found purchase against the stiff bark. The bird flew off, and the Fae hit me with his unarmed riding hand. I remember the blows feeling distant, as if through armor, though I was wearing none. After that, I simply squeezed.

**Exaltation**  
You know me as graced by Luna, blessed by her Full Moon, so what I tell you won’t surprise you. But it surprised me then. When the moonlight faded from around me the Fair Folk, his lizard, and the tree branch were so compressed I could not tell one from the other. His beautiful armor was shattered like a trunk had fallen on it, and his lithe body along with it. The sword was in two pieces, blade and pommel come apart. The lizard was smeared across the branch, mixed with wood pulp. I was standing on the uncrushed section of the branch when I heard it crack, then fall, taking what remained of the Fae and his lizard to the forest floor. I left them both to the lizard-beasts who eat the dead. I was too stunned to save any of his fine gossamer from the fall.

It was then that I saw our goddess Luna transform from a white crow to a woman whose face belonged in the Tchu-Tcha tribe. She said to me, “The tribe you know is only a graveyard, now. You have outgrown them. I take you for my tribe. Go and meet your new kin.”

To the goddess, I simply nodded in amazement. She faded into moonlight, and left by the wind.

But once I was awoken from that vision, I did not listen. I did not have the discipline then that I do now. Filled with grief, I ran back to my tribe’s home tree to see how they fared. I could not leave my brother alone against the enemy. I wanted to use my new strength.

When I arrived it was just as Luna has said. Corpses were strewn across the branches and floor. No Fae were left to fight, and their lizards’ tracks ended at the tree trunks, beyond which I could not track them. I ran among the bodies, looking for any that still breathed, but none showed signs of life. I saw my brother’s body, broken and covered in blood, among them. I wept for hours as I buried as many as I could. Exhausted, I climbed a tree and fell asleep.

The next day the lizard-beasts of the forest, not the twisted ones ridden by the Fae, were eating all the bodies left unburied they could reach on the forest floor. To my dismay, they even dug up some few shallow graves and defiled those bodies as well. I watched them, numb. That is how Rain Deathflyer and Silver Python came upon me. They said they had travelled far, from Halta, led by the stars that said I would Exalt the previous night. They took me to their home, told me about myself and Luna, made me face the trials as two others watched on, and fixed my Caste to the Full Moon. After that, I became a Lunar, no longer Tchu-Tcha.


	5. Kajeha Lef

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kajeha Lef, Bride of Ahlat, marries the moon.

**Life in Harborhead**  
I was born to the Totikari people around Harborhead. I was not born into one home, but into many as we traveled around all my life, hunting and moving with the seasons. When I was young, I was carried on the backs of my older siblings, but soon I too trekked the hundreds of miles with my family. I ran and hunted with those of my age, and I grew lean and strong. I traveled the vast expanse of the planes every year, learning the secrets and treasures it had to bestow. And in that time, I learned to worship Ahlat as my people have done for generations. I learned to tend the cattle and protect them from rustlers. I learned to run and jump and wield a spear in his name. And this is how I was chosen to become his bride.

It was our village chieftain who decided that I was to be trained as a Bride of Ahlat. She had been one herself and had served her years as a Guardswoman for the Leopard. She was a fierce and noble warrior, and she saw much of herself in me. Although the choice to become a Bride of Ahlat is to fall to the warrior herself, few children have the presence of mind to deny a chieftain’s recommendation, and I was no exception. So I began to train for the day I would dedicate myself to Ahlat.

I trained primarily in the weapon of my people, which is the spear, although I had some tutelage in the staff and knife. I learned to run far and long. I could run down any of the prey that I sought and still carry it back home. When the work was done for the day, I spared with warriors of the tribe to gain the skill I would need when I entered into Ahlat’s service.

I was 14, nearly the age of my marriage, when I first tasted war. It had been against the Izhalvi, who had been caught attempting to steal cattle from us. Cattle are sacred to us, and although they too worship Ahlat, we couldn’t have them use our cattle for their sacrifices. I proved that I had learned my skills, and with ease I slayed the enemies before me, their blood spilling red on the parched ground. I was almost ready, the chieftain had said, and I began to work with the warrior groups from then on.

 **Bride of Ahlat**  
At the age of 16, I traveled with members of my tribe to one of the larger temples of Ahlat. We, the Totikari, went with an entire hecatomb, much of which was stolen from our neighbors. My chieftain hoped to catch the eye of Ahlat, to bring his prosperity onto our sect of the tribe by offering myself as a Bride of Ahlat above the cattle she had given to the hecatomb. The ceremony . He did not show himself to me, as he had done to some brides as they performed , but I heard him whisper to me the words of the bridegroom as he accepted the oath I swore to him. I also felt the whisper of his kiss on my lips, and I warmed for the day our marriage would be consummated.

But that day never seemed to come. I trained and honed my martial art skills with other Brides, but he did not come. I endured, for I knew my marriage to the holy Ahlat would be consummated one day. 

I battled the enemies of Ahlat, fighting the servants of smaller gods and the Dragon-Blooded that threatened my god, but I was not called to him. I fought his enemies and neighbors, both alone and with his other brides, but I was not called to him. Again I endured, for I knew my marriage would be consummated one day. 

I gathered and scarified cattle in his name, creating and watching over herds for his pleasure, and yet he did not come for me. I precured cows from neighboring kingdoms to bring glory upon my god, and yet he did not come for me. I spilled and bathed in the blood of my enemies to worship my god, and yet he did not come for me. Still I endured, for I knew my marriage would be consummated one day. 

I prayed and worshiped, wearing the beads of my people with the thousand names of Ahlat carved into them. My clothes were adorned with the tassels he so cherished to bring his favor. I fought for the worshipers of Ahlat, gaining a name for the warriors of my god, bringing to him in turn more Brides. I did all I knew to do for him, and still he did not come to me. My final years as a Bride of Ahlat were coming near, but I endured. I knew nothing else to do.

 **Exaltation**  
It was twilight when I was visited by my husband. I was near the forests near the foothills of the Summer Mountains. There was a small woodland temple to my god there, and I was guarding it that night. Not all temples of Ahlat were guarded as the Fane of the Upswept Horns, but when I came upon a temple of his during my travels, I felt it was my duty to protect it.

I finished my martial arts training before the temple, as the moon was beginning to rise and the sun was beginning to set. A fire was burning nearby, adding light to the darkening sky and throwing everything into shadow. As I made my nightly prayers to Ahlat, a sight made me pause with my spear at the ready.

A beautiful man had come out of the nearby forest as though from nowhere. He had skin that was dark, like that of a Southerner, but it seemed to have an ethereal glow that emanated from him. He wore mostly silver and white. His tunic, serwal, and shemagh, was a pattern of whites and greys while his pauldron and greeves were a blazing silver. All along his armor and shemagh, a willowy silver design glowed in the moonlight. I had never seen someone so misplaced in the kingdom of Harborhead before.

I felt wary of such a person, coming towards me at a slow gait. I had dealt with some of the gods that Ahlat had warred with, and I was aware that they had many tricks at their disposal. This handsome man was not to be trusted. I raised my spear towards him, and told him to stop in the name of Ahlat.

“Hold fast, my beautiful Kajeha Lef,” he said to me, his hand raised as though to quite a flighty beast. “I am here for nothing more than to retrieve my bride.”

“I am a bride of Ahlat, and you are not he,” I said in return.

“No, I am Luna, and I have claimed you from Ahlat for myself. You are a bride to him no more.”

I couldn’t help but falter, for I had been a bride of Ahlat for nearly 10 years. I had trained to be his bride from childhood, and here some other god had stolen me as I stole cattle in his name? I turned to the temple behind me, thinking nothing of the spirit as I prostrated myself on the floor and wept. I had not pleased my god. My god had forsaken me.

“He has not forsaken you,” Luna said from close beside me. “He has relinquished you to one more deserving. Now I am here to make you my own; to claim my bride.”

With a hand on my elbow, he lifted me from the ground. His warm touch filled me with his love and blessings as he brushed the tears from my cheeks. He pressed a kiss into my mouth, I could feel a power come through me and wrap itself around me like the most delicate armor. When he pulled away, I could not help but stare in wonder at this man, this god before me. This god Luna who had blessed me in no way Ahlat had ever. At that moment, my heart was filled to bursting with love for Luna, for my husband.

“Now greet your husband as befits his new wife,” he said.

And finally, after waiting for all those years, my marriage was consummated.

 **My Mentor and Husband**  
We did not stay by that shrine to Ahlat, but instead moved to a wondrous palace unlike something I had ever seen before. I was later told by Luna that it was Yu-Shan, but I didn’t care on first arrival. I only cared about exploring my growing relationship with my husband, a joy I expected. Our marriage was filled with passion during the early moments. I hesitate to say how long, as time is unclear in the heavenly city. But all good things must come to an end.

Near the end of our stay, I was presented with two wedding gifts. First was a moonsilver lance by the name of Luna’s Kiss. It was given to me as an homage to my warrior skills as a mortal. 

“With this direlance,” my husband had said, “you will always find your mark.” And so I did; to this day I have always struck true. “As long as you hold that lance you will leave no tracks,” he said, shortly after I had thrown the lance across the garden. “No one will track you by footprints or scent. You will be the greatest of hunters.” It was a godly gift, and more than I deserved, but he persisted. 

His second gift to me was a set of moonsilver bracers with a large orange gem set inside each, named the Sinks of Heat. “These will keep you from harm,” he said, placing the bracers on my wrists. “You will find them particularly useful in your homelands of the South, where heat can wither the strongest of men.” I was humbled by these two gifts, fore they were more than I had ever had before. I did my best to demonstrate my gratitude, and it may have delayed us longer than intended.

Eventually we left his grand and wooded Auberge in the heavenly city and returned to the lands of Creation. We passed through a gate guarded by golden lions into the ruins of once-great city. However, I was unfamiliar with the area I was in. Where I had been used to wide swaths of dry grassland, rivers and greenery were everywhere. Where I had grown used to trees that were lithe with sparse leaves, here trees grew fat and round with enough leaves to block out the sun. There was no intense heat, but the moisture in the air made it harder to breathe.

We stayed and camped, as we had done that first night together, the moonlight above being our only guide to one another. It was comfortable to be with him, more comfortable than I had ever imagined. “Here is where I must leave you for a time,” Luna said, drawing me closer in his arms. “You will find another of my champions by the name of The Silver Shadow to the Northwest of here, and she will teach you the ways of the Lunars and tattoo you from harm. I will tell her of your coming. Sleep now, for the traveling will be new and strange ”

When I woke my husband was gone. All that was in his place was the clothing of my people turned white with his grace. I left to complete his first task for me.


	6. Magnificent Jaguar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnificent Jaguar, estranged son, zealous guzosha.

**The Immigrant**  
Sometimes, I forget that I am old even for a Lunar. Losing so much time, I feel like I have lived two lives. Not my mortal life and my Exalted life, but my Exalted youth and then the life after my slumber. In many ways I am still a youth to this second life of mine. Ah, but you came here for a story, not ramblings on how some relic of the First Age took a nap. Here is the story of my mortal life.

I was born on an RPC in the Realm Deliberative. Yes, I may seem like a wizened old Exalt to you now, but then I was just a grower. We tended date trees. We prayed to the date spirits, irrigated what rain was scheduled to their roots, and hand-plucked the fruit in the harvest season. It was a simple life, and I was not content with it.

I heard word that a Solar, Contentious Sword, had commissioned a shaping of a new territory in the Southeast bordering the Wyld. Of course, settlers were welcome to tie this new land to Creation. Free transport there, a free plot of land, and free yearly trips home to see family were offered to any who would uproot their lives and tame the jungle territory. I readily volunteered.

**The Jungle Warrior**  
As all I knew by way of a trade was growing, I expected to start an orchard, living off a Deliberative subsidy while my trees grew to maturity and living off their harvest in the years afterwards. It was not to be.

Contentious Sword was a Dawn Caste, perpetually concerned with war. Even though no more than the usual aggression from the Wyld had been repulsed in the shaping of the Nova Juthe territory, Contentious Sword was convinced he needed to prepare against an invasion of his new land. It was never very clear which direction the expected war was to come from, but the propaganda posters made frequent mention of threats from the Wyld. When I went to the local office to file my paperwork for my orchard subsidy, I was instead conscripted into is mortal legions.

The first weeks were spent in study of the various units I could choose to enlist with. Fresh from having the choice of profession taken from me, perhaps this deference to mortal choice was meant as a salve. Whatever its bureaucratic purpose, I did not care, for I was young and hotheaded, eager to embrace this thrilling new vocation. From among the quartermasters, infantry, cavalry, airmen and gunzosha units, I chose the most elite: the gunzosha.

A year later I’d earned my aegis insert surgery and suit of gunzosha armor. Though I had been in contact via the IAM terminals, I took that time to visit my family and tell them what I’d accomplished in person.

They were appalled. They feared they would outlive me. That I’d die fighting the Exalted, or gods, or monsters, or that I’d simply let my Essence be burned to move the heavy gunzosha armor no mortal could operate with their muscles alone. We fought. I left.

Back on the front I threw myself into soldiering. I learned every maneuver, passed every test, and volunteered for extra shifts. I rose to fanglord. Then, we were called out to the edge of the Wyld.

Back then, under the Solar’s rule, the Wyld was a bright line. On one side of it, was reality was bright and clear, as stable as the Blessed Isle. On the other, held back by reality engines deployed for that purpose, was a twisting chaos. Sometimes floorless air, sometimes solid rocks, sometimes a wall of leaves made of fur, it changed even while you looked at it, unencumbered by the subtlety of the Bordermarches we know today.

Our orders were to stand guard while one of the reality engines was brought offline for unscheduled maintenance. Some Fae had rushed into it and been zapped like a beast by a thunderbolt. Pieces of it were smeared across the engine’s external casing.

Hours went by as the sorcerer-technicians worked on the engine. The day ended and the full moon rose. Dangerous combination, that, standing at the edge of the Wyld as Luna pulls it into Creation with her gravity. Every shadow of the jungle looked like a threat, every noise some ambush. My men were getting nervous, and I had them march under orders to keep them distracted. It wasn’t working.

When the Fair Folk rode forth, we had no warning. One moment there was a fog filled with lights beyond the reality engine’s radii, then they came rushing in. Some rode sea-beasts with fins slapping the dirt, tall as buildings, trampling anything they could, still shedding water as if they had jumped from the sea. Others flew under their own wings, raining down arrows from bows whose twangs sang of heartbreak and loss. Most charged with legs, though there were no uniform agreement on number, some running as men, others as horses, all swinging weapons as varied as their forms. We met them with discipline, as we’d been trained.

The sorcerer-technicians dropped their tools and ran, as they had been drilled to. The Dragon-Blooded general shouted orders, and men marched about to follow them. We had no Celestial support, as neither Contentious Sword or his Lunar mate Jaguar Fourclaws were in residence. My own unit took our armored strength to the center of the infantry’s battle where our line had broken, beating back the Fae who threatened to break through and encircle us.

The melee was disorienting in intensity. I saw the strongest under my command lose a leg even through his armor, crushed by a great sea-beast. I stabbed the leg that pinned him with my yellow Jade sword, causing it to retreat with a limp. Blows from smaller Fae rained on my armor, their gossamer deflected by the cold Jade of its reality. I struck and struck, wounding and slaying several foes, but soon found myself alone and surrounded.

I took a hard blow to the head, knocking offline my Integrated Targeting Subsystem. Swinging wildly, I overextended myself. My arms were clipped by a hammer of glass, I lost my weapon in the resulting explosion, and the damage took offline the Exomuscular Fibers of my gunzosha armor. But I did not give up. I grabbed the nearest enemy, some small maniken, and tumbled to the ground with him.

While locked in that grapple, I let out a roar no human throat could match. The force of it knocked off my helmet. Moonlight seared the Fae around me, pushing them back. I bit the creature in my grasp with fangs I didn’t have a moment before. My lock-hatches failed, opening my torso to the fight and unbalancing my combined weight. I slid out of my armor, hearing the rattling of balls rolling within that Jade cage as it hit the ground. I felt free. A fighter’s instinct took my senses, and I had soon killed or routed all the Fae that had surrounded me.

I turned to fight the rest of the enemy, but saw them fleeing the field instead. I gave chase. I believe, looking back, that I would have followed them into the deepest Wyld. At the line where reality failed, a woman in white robes, pale of skin and silver of hair, barefoot, truly out of place on the battlefield, stood in waiting. Seeing her as no threat, for I was thinking only in those binary terms, I made to run past her to the battle. As I past, she reached down to stroke the fur on top of my head. I clawed that perfect hand in my frenzy, but despite their sharpness, my claws found no purchase in her soft skin. Nor did the fangs that followed. She shushed me, and calmed me with sure strokes until I could think again.

When I realized who she must be, my eyes filled with panic and terror at having given offense. To my relief, the Fickle Lady showed no signs of it. She smiled down on me with a mother’s kindness, forgiveness and understanding radiating from her form. We exchanged no words then, and we never have since. But at my Second Breath I knew that I had a mother in her, and she knew she had a son in me.


	7. Leviathan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leviathan, reaching for the means to best nature.

_Note for the Reader: The following is recorded while Leviathan, The Great Whale, made conscious effort to speak to me. His tattoos and skin light up such that you're taken in by a vision of what he's thinking so complete it blocks out your surroundings. Or what he is choosing you to see; it was never clear. I've done my best to transcribe the visions, the experiences of his life walking alongside me in the vision with narrations, and his conversation that he gifted me while I was his pup, and he my mentor. All of this was recorded in Deliberative years 4127 to 4139 as we roamed the Wyld together._

All knowledge is fragmentary[1]. Even the great masters: of war, of state, of magic do not know the full depths of their craft. They'll tell you that when they're at their best it's like they're someone else. That they've stopped thinking, their entire being focused on doing. They are few, and even they can't be like that all the time. Some say it is only when the gods will it that they reach that pinnacle of skill. The Exalted who grew familiar with the gods knew that not to be true. Instead, they reasoned that for rare moments, when the Essence flowed just so, that something outside of them, something primal and unknowable, the very source of reality, completed the pieces of themselves that were so often missing. The pieces they could never have. Every Exalt experiences it when they take the Second Breath. In that moment of perfect action, of just being, there can be no thought of being any else, of acting in any other way. The lucky find that state of mind a few more times before they die. I wonder if the philosopher who wrote that, whose name I no longer remember, was in that state when he wrote of it, or if he was just fumbling along with half a map like any other day.

[1] _While being told this story, I sat in a library with Leviathan’s human form. He had a book open titled On the Mastery of Essence but the words were not legible no matter how closely I examined the book, nor was the author listed anywhere._

Swims in Shadows, you listen well. They were right to mark you as a No Moon. When I'm gone you'll tell my legend in the history. I hope it tells better than it lived. Luna willing, the pups will make new and different mistakes. Ones that won't take them down my path.

The First Age?[2] Prior to the Usurpation by those betrayers?[3] Oh, yes, I was there. But you already knew that. You're a smart one. And I'm determined to keep you in my good graces, so the history remembers me well. That's my first piece of advice - be kind to those who speak broadly of you. To most people a singer's stories are all you'll ever be to them. There's just so many people in the world. So many.

[2] _A shining city with buildings covering an entire mountainside flashed before me when I asked Leviathan about the First Age. The vantage point was a bird’s, high in the air and moving at great speed._

[3] _The same city was shown in flames, but this time it was viewed through some sort of scrying screen. The transition came about quite quickly, but also completely._

I was a military man. Part of the Deliberative's naval forces. We hated the ground troops, the Deliberative army in particular, but also most anyone who was stationed on land in a Solar's personal army or anybody else's land forces. It's not that we didn't like the sea. It's that we were usually stationed so far away from the pivotal action of a conflict that we were forgotten. [4] An exception was the after war with the Lintha, The Flaming Sea War, which came and went before my birth. I hear the name was overstating the conflict; it was just a mop up once Kimberry was imprisoned. And the pelagathrope war. Again, before my time. By the time I entered the Navy the resentment of the ground forces was well entrenched. It was that they got all the prestige. Even over the air forces. It might have been the numbers, or it might have been that most Manses appear on land, even the ones Aspected to water, or simply that Meru was surrounded by so much land that the prestige radiating on the ground forces made them shine so bright by comparison. Like the blessings of the Deliberative were all soaked up before seeing the first shore lapped by waves. We groused about it endlessly, but never got to the bottom of it. Why, one time we got in a roaring fight during shore leave because one of the southern men said that even the desert he served in was worth more than the whole of the sea. Preposterous, of course. They might have a few shiny stones and dust that'll explode in your face if you give it half a chance, but they can't feed nations with the catch, or have a different kind of bird on every island no matter how close, or be connected to every direction of Creation. No, clearly deserts cannot compare. Where were we? I get lost ... in the memories.

[4] _During this segment I was sitting with Leviathan in a common mess hall that rocks ever so slightly. Bored sailors took their leave time eating, joking with each other, and looking into terminals with IAM written on them in Old Realm._

I exalted in the service of Amayana.[5] She was always my queen. I had served 20 years in the Deliberative's navy based out of Luthe, policing shipping lanes for pirates and smugglers, keeping the shores in line, too. I was a low ranking captain of a small ship, but as a mortal I couldn't complain about the posting. It was likely the best I'd ever get, I thought at the time. My step was starting to get a little slower, though my sight was as keen as ever. I swam extra laps to try and keep up with the younger lads, and most of the time my dedication overtook their youthful vigor in the timed swims. But I was no longer the best fighting man on the ship when the Dragon-Blooded weren't aboard, and everyone knew it. No one held it against me. I was a captain after all, promoted for an excellent record and my ability to lead men, not to fight every pirate with my own hands. But I like to lead from example, so I felt out of place sitting behind the captain's desk when there wasn't any active business that required the formality. Amayana's levy fleet to the Deliberative needed my service, and for that I was proud enough to serve, even through the beginnings of old age. Not every man was as loyal. There were plenty of loyal men, of course. Some loyal to the Deliberative, some to Amayana like myself, some to the West as a whole under the Ocean Father, some to Creation consistent with their reverence for Gaia. Some were loyal only to coin, or the woman waiting for them ashore, or to drink, or to bright morning. But many didn't even have that much direction. They were lost at sea - tired of the RPCs where they grew up, not fitting in on ship, they hadn't found their place. I tried my best to give them one to call home aboard the The Northwestern.

[5] _The most striking blonde haired, bronze skinned woman I have ever seen filled my entire vision when I heard Amayana’s name the first time. She was truly, unearthly beautiful._

It was in the Second Deliberative Era, 3105, near the end of that time and the beginning of the Era of Dreams. Just another calm day at sea during Resplendent Wood, no other ships in sight. We heard a blip on our underwater scanners. Protocol dictated that we send an aqua armor team to investigate, and we followed it. As they approached the target, half the ship disintegrated in a ray of light that boiled the ocean around it for a moment. We took on enough water to sink us in less than a minute. I ordered the crew to abandon ship, and ran to the railing myself. The lifeboats were stored on the half of the ship that wasn't there anymore. We were within sight of land, but damn far for a mortal to swim. Without some help from the currents I feared for our chances. I yelled for the crew to follow me, and we made a swim for it. I hit that hot water and pushed through to the cold sea, the temperature it should be, then stripped my clothes off to keep them from hindering me. I later found out that some Solars disagreed with the recent trade restrictions passed by the Deliberative and got into smuggling themselves. If they'd just talked to us, we probably would have let them pass. I guess they didn't want anybody to know they were there. Even blowing us to hell, that didn't work out for them because of what happened next.

If I had Exalted at the start of my swim, given the light of the Unconquered Sun at the moment where I could be most heroic, I think I would have saved my remaining crew by swimming them all to shore myself in a flurry of Essence. But that's not Luna's way. She has to see you struggle, to survive, before her light takes you. We swam all day, and now it was nighttime. I couldn't see half of them; I gave the order to call roll every hundred strokes. There were far fewer than I'd hoped, but more than I feared. We made it through that night, fighting against the waves, calling out our names, watching the land come nearer. The current seemed to be going crossways, neither hurting or helping us. We had that much, and each other. The next day some of the men lobbied to try and sleep on the water. I denied them, it was too dangerous. A man could die breathing in a small gulp of water, and all familiarity with the sea left you when you went to sleep. I gave the order to keep swimming. That day, we weren't alone. The siaka had smelled us. She took the first man violently, cresting with him in his mouth, and crashing down again in a spray of salt and blood. But when she saw how little like agile fish we were, how feeble and slow our human limbs had gotten from being so long in the water, or maybe just less hungry with the first soldier in her belly, she slowed down. We all had a shot of adrenaline that upped our pace for a while, but with land still so far off that burst of speed was just a dint in the distance we needed to cover. So I ordered a watch to be kept and the swim to go on. She ate three more that day despite our watch, casually swimming behind one soldier too tired to heed the warning, and catching their feet or legs, thrashing them silly then crunching the rest of them. That night we had a storm. Violent it was. My skin was beginning to thin and tear from the constant salt of the sea. Several men crashed into each other, pushed by the waves. I collided with a silver-haired woman who must have been a stowaway, because I’d never seen her before. As sea-logged as she was, she still gave me a reassuring smile. The watch could barely see the siaka, and half the calls were drowned by thunder. I don't know how many she took that night. But the worst of it was that with the storm blowing so hard we couldn't see land. We didn't know which way to go, even though it hadden’t changed not being able to check disheartened everyone. It was in this state that I resolved that I was going to make it. That I would not let the distance, or the storm, or the siaka take me. I had to report the loss of the Northwestern. I had to live. I let out a yell and swam as hard as I could. I left everything behind. I didn't think about it at the time, but every time I tell the story I realize I was derelict in my duty to the men and women under my command, leaving them all to die. I was no reasoned captain then. I was a beast at war with a world that didn't care if I lived or died, so I cared enough for the both of us. As I swam the storm broke and the moon shone through. It lit the path for me to come ashore.[6] The storm must have changed the current, for I was much closer than I could have hoped. I began to kick with both my legs at the same time, and they fused together. My eyes were drawn up, no longer looking down into the depths, but ahead of me while still in the water. My nose climbed along my face, out of the water, and I no longer needed to turn my head to breathe. I picked up speed, impossible speed, as I conquered the distance remaining. When I finally had swam all the water there was to swim, I slid on my belly, beaching myself and panting from my blowhole. Several villagers came out to gawk at me. I didn't care. I'd made it.

[6] _Leviathan showed me the moonlight streaking across the water, as viewed from underneath, drawing a straight line on its surface. The shore was not visible due to the murkiness of the water absorbing any light across the great distance._

My life, needless to say, completely changed once I became a Lunar. I was immediately jumped from petty captain of a standard ship to one of great prestige, right off of the Factory Cathedral line. My standard of living jumped from respectable to opulent. No more standard rations to eat, no more cramped cabin to sleep in, and no more thin beer on shore leave. To this day I enjoy a good siaka soup, and I have a taste for Southern wines. My Solar mate was introduced to me for the first time, Admiral Arkadi. He wasn't a Grand Admiral yet, he'd have to wait on Seventh Chrysanthemum to pass on before that. But he was powerful in the navy even then. He was glad to hear his mate had reincarnated among the force he'd dedicated his life to. He wasn't so glad to see that I was a man. Neither of us, even in those freewheeling easy days, had a taste for men. I didn't have the curiosity to become a Twin Faced Hero, and Arkadi, understanding fellow that he was, never pressured me to. He once told me, deep in his cups, that even if I did have the body of a woman, the second I started talking with that Western accent of mine he'd know me through any form I wore and lose the will to do anything about it.[7] That disappointment soon passed. We became great friends and allies. He was a great help getting me a great apology and wealth from the Solar that destroyed The Northwestern, and he helped me track down and pay out to the families of my former crew, all of whom perished. But more than helping me tie up those last vestiges of my mortal life, he was my guide and mentor into my new life as an Exalt. He was the first to invite me to Clepsys where I was introduced to the Grand Tortoise Terrakun, the only survivor of the Deliberative’s ritual conquest combats on record. Arkadi was the first to secure my invitation to the Carnival of Meeting where I met Luna for the second time; we had a good laugh about our first meeting. And a thousand other experiences and introductions. Arkadi wanted me to succeed, but more than that, to live.

[7] _A militarily dressed man, scarf loose and medals askew on his chest, sits across from us and is clearly completely drunk._

He married Amayana some few decades later. She had a similar situation with her much elder Lunar bond, Red Coral Manta. Since Amayana was the queen of Luthe and Arkadi an admiral, they had much in common and ample opportunity to meet as equals inside and outside the Deliberative. During their courtship, even though Arkadi was several centuries older, Arkadi's last reincarnation died shortly after the Primordial War's end, he always treated her with respect, hearing her out and taking her plans to spread her legendary compassion seriously. Because of our overlapping bonds and frequent visitations, Queen Amayana, Red Coral Manta, Admiral Arkadi and I all became close friends. In that rare company is the only time I heard Arkadi referred to by his first name, Kendrik. Amayana tried, I learned much later, to set me up with Red Coral Manta.[8] She spoke about me in glowing terms to her Lunar mate, she told me, and listed all my best qualities. It didn't work, for Red Coral Manta was stubbornly set to have no other lover after Amayana's previous incarnation that was not Amayana herself. They had loved each other very deeply in Amayan’s previous life, I gather. I don't think Red Coral Manta ever truly got over the loss of her former wife. None of this excused what came later. But it is the way I lived in my early days as a Lunar Exalt.

[8] _A woman with alternative stark white and shadow-black skin and completely red eyes in a daringly scant blue dress, gives Leviathan a condescending smile, shaking her head at him while I listened._

I swiftly made commodore myself with Arkadi's endorsement. When Admiral Arkadi became Grand Admiral, he named me second in command, taking the admiralship he vacated. I did like the command, but never truly got to run things my way like I did when I was a captain of my own ship. The Deliberative held dominion over the naval forces I was commanding, and Arkadi was their foremost representative, so he made fleet-wide policy himself for the most part. If he hadn't had such a lust for battle, I might have had a harder time living in his shadow. As it was, he personally involved himself in the biggest engagement on the sea, any sea, at any time. Creation was newer then, and though much less warlike than this fallen age, there were plenty of folks who resented the yoke of the Deliberative, doubly so in the isolated West. His presence in situational command meant his absence from general command, which left me in charge. I upheld his policies but with my own spin. Most Solars were so watched by the world, so taken with their own presence that they couldn't go anywhere without announcement. I made it a habit to frequently launch surprise inspections of the fleet. When the acting Grand Admiral casually asks you why you were sleeping at your post, appearing on your ship out of nowhere, you remember the occurrence. Even if it never happens to you or anyone you know ever again, when your eyes droop in the seventh hour of a shift you dig in for the vigilance to make it through. At the time, I liked to think I made them a bit more ready for whatever would come for them in the future.[9] I was wrong.

[9] _This vision ended by looking up from the mess to see comets of blue, white, red, black and green blazing across the sky, getting larger as time went on. Then, they collided with the windows, shattering them in explosions of each element. I left my mentor to record all he had relayed to me._


End file.
